Good Heavens!
My interest in classical literature started with the TV quiz "Les Satellipopettes" on TVA channel. You remember? Among other things, we could win Comtesse de Ségur's novels. Short of winning, I found it easier to ask my mom to buy the novels for me: it was one of my favorite readings. Later, my interest spread over to Hugo, Dumas, Dostoyevsky and others.
But I never read Charles Dickens until very recently. I chose Oliver Twist as my introduction to his novels. In addition to passages ornated by hilarious humor, I had the pleasure to rediscover similarities to Comtesse de Ségur's style; no wonder, you might say, these works date back to the same period. But there is more. Just like the Comtesse, Dickens presents several settings and conversations in which the characters display genuine goodness of heart, to a point where I was left deeply moved with emotion, grappling with a feeling of inner elevation that brought me on the verge of tears. The dramatic intensity of these scenes was accentuated by the closeness to other tormenting behaviours: shameless cruelty, villainy, etc.
"Come on, what's the matter with me," I said to myself, more surprised than embarrassed by my reaction. I interrupted my reading to let it sink and feel the full effect of the inner motion. How could fictitious but realistic scenarios have such an impact on me? It was as if I felt a psychological reward, as well as a physical relief. A kind of therapy. My spontaneous reaction to it was: "Phew, that feels good."
Moreover, in real life, we encounter many examples of great kindness, of people so devoted to help the sick, the poor, the abandoned children; in short, all human miseries. These people put themselves at risk most of the time. But if human beings are capable of such goodness, how much greater could be that of God? People become the channel of His mercy, and our good deeds or bad actions towards our neighbor, He becomes the recipient (Mt 25). But still, if the goodness of God is infinitely superior to ours, by nature, why turn away from such kindness towards us?
It was a moment of deep introspection. I took a look at my past and present life. Somehow, my heart became “all eyes and ears”. To acknowledge God’s work, we need to look and listen from the heart. My thoughts turned to Mary, who “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Lk 2:19). Was it not then her way to acknowledge the goodness of God? Yes, and the more I think about it, the more I can recognize God’s action in my life. And it brings a smile just to remember that my mother often expressed wonderment by saying: "Good Heavens!"
“Exploited, subjected to deprivation and bullying in an orphanage where he ended up after his mother's death, Oliver Twist is put under the care of an undertaker,as an apprentice, from where he escapes to take refuge in London. Exhausted by his flight, naive and trusting in the first comer who approaches him, he finds asylum with a gang of young pickpockets, working for a criminal, the old Fagin. Arrested for stealing a handkerchief, a crime he did not commit, Oliver is taken in by Mr Brownlow, who treats him like his own son. But it doesn't take long for his gang buddies to lay hands on him again, and force him to participate in the burglary of a house whose dwellers will change the course of his existence.
Oliver Twist is a startling and realistic depiction of the condition of abandoned children in Victorian England. Don't worry, the story has a happy ending!”
(summary by Marc Paré)
